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AMERICA'S Conquest 
OF Europe 



BY 



DAVID STARR JORDAN 



Chancello)' of Stanford University 




BOSTON 
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 

1913 






COPYKIGHT, 1913 

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 



^' ^ 



■?=^ ^: 



TO 

HENRI LA FONTAINE 
SENATOR OF BELGIUM 
PROPHET OF INTERNATIONALISM 



PREFATORY NOTE 

The essay, "America's Conquest of Europe," 
was prepared at the request of Senator Henri La 
Fontaine, and published simultaneously at Brus- 
sels in the French language under the title, *'Ce 
que I'Amerique peut Enseigner a I'Europe." 

The second address, entitled "World Peace and 
the Treaty of Ghent," was delivered in English at 
a world congress of heads of secondary schools, 
held in Ghent, August 6, 1913. 



Ol0nt^«ts 



PAGE 

AMERICA'S CONQUEST OF EUROPE . . i 

La Fontaine's Appeal 3 

America's Lapses 4 

Internationalism in America .... 6 

The English Note Dominant .... 7 

The Melting Pot 8 

The Anglo-Saxon Alliance ; .' . . . 10 

Interlocking Bonds of Civilization . . 11 

American Democracy 13 

"America Means Opportunity" ... 14 

The Individual and the State . . . . 15 

"Paris in America" 16 

The Ideals of America 19 

American Prosperity 20 

The Democratic State 21 

The Test of National Solidarity , . . 22 

American Federation 24 

Nations as Jurisdictions 24 

The Canadian Boundary 25 

Nations as "Powers'' 26 



Contenw 



PAGE 

The United States of Europe .... 30 

Open Diplomacy 32 

The Secret Treaty 33 

The Monroe Doctrine and the Draco 

Doctrine 35 

The Control of the Sea 37 

The Separation of Religion from Politics 38 

Justice and Benevolence 39 

Labor and Capital 42 

The Growth of Great Fortunes ... 42 

The Rule of Property 43 

Privilege in Democracy 45 

Militarism in Democracy 46 

The Man and the State 47 

America and World Peace 48 

The Movement of Civilization .... 51 

Democracy and Peace 51 

WORLD PEACE AND THE TREATY OF 

GHENT 52 



Am^rira s Olnttqu^Bt of lEuropf 



I wish in this essay to say a serious word, 
to the citizens of the great republic, to its 
future leaders in its thought and action. I wish 
them to think earnestly of the part American in- 
fluence must play in the world history of our 
century. It is for us to help cure the accumulated 
evils of the older civilization. Those men in 
Europe who look furthest into the future hope for 
the salvation of Europe through ideals brought 
back from practical service in America. One of 
these, Senator Henri La Fontaine, of Brussels, 
has asked me to write and to speak in his native 
country on the hope of his life, "The Conquest of 
Europe by America." I hasten to say that he 
does not mean conquest by force of arms, for we 
have no interest in such conquests and no belief 
that victories thus won result in any permanent 
good to any nation. Nor do we mean financial 

[I] 



america'0 Conquest of ©utope 

conquests, the floating of imperial loans or the 
permeation of any part of European business by 
financiers from the New World. Still less do 
we celebrate a shoppers' contest on the Place de 
rOpera or among the dazzling bargains of the 
Bon Marche. Nor does the trail of American 
tourists who cross with silver the palms of 
Europe's servitors, all the way from Piccadilly to 
the Pyramids, awaken in me any pride of nation 
or of race. The only permanent conquest is that 
of ideas. America stands, has always stood, for 
two ideals from which she cannot escape, for they 
are fundamental in her origin and in her growth. 
These are internationalism and democracy, and 
these ideals, being invincible, must conquer 
America and, through her, reconquer Europe. 
And as both are incompatible with war, their 
final triumph marks the end of spoliation, of 
militarism, and of that relation between nations 
which breeds suspicion and hatred. The conquest 
of the world by the ideals of internationalism and 
democracy marks the coming of universal peace. 

[2] 



amet:ica'0 Conquest of ffiutope 

La Fontaine's Appeal 

In an address at Baltimore in 1911, La Fon- 
taine, the veteran prophet of international life, 
used these striking words : 

"Emigration, perhaps more than war, has de- 
prived the old historic countries of their most 
energetic and fittest ones to build the progressive 
and wealthy people you are on this side of the 
Atlantic. You are for us Europeans the beloved 
Brotherland. Do not forget that Europe is al- 
ways and will still remain for you the beloved 
Motherland. Europe is now for America what 
Greece was for Europe. Europe has liberated 
Greece. America has to liberate Europe from its 
burdens, its prejudices, its hatreds. It is your 
duty, it is your highest duty, to reconcile outside 
your borders the people you have reconciled 
within your borders. For indeed, the American 
people is at present the true international people. 
It is the elect people which alone can further in- 
ternationalism and can transform all of the 
peoples of the earth into a family of nations, a 

[3] 



america'0 Conquest of Cutope 

brotherhood of men, an international people. 
For colonization is not mainly done by men and 
by capital, but also by ideas, by example, by 
experiment." 

America's Lapses 

We may freely admit in the beginning that 
America has not always been true to her own 
ideals, and that she has not always clearly seen her 
own future. She has had her own lapses, moral 
and social, some of these because of associations 
with Europe and through imitation of glories alien 
to her history. If she had been true to herself she 
would never have known a single foreign war. 
She has no part in those greeds and jealousies of 
money or of race which still keep up turmoil in 
Europe. Her war with Spain, with its eagerness 
for exploitation, its tinsel imperialism and its 
pride of participation in "world politics," repre- 
sents the worst of these lapses, and its evil effects 
are long in passing. But though the inception of 
this affair was European in method, its continu- 
ance has been characteristically American. In- 

[4] 



America's Conquest of OEurope 

stead of exploitation, we have brought to the 
Philippines education and sanitation. We have 
expended on them a hundred times more than we 
have received, and if ever imperialism can be 
respectable we have made it so. 

Another false movement has been in the build- 
ing of warships and forts in America. This lacks 
the motive for similar extravagances in Europe, 
because the peace of the new world is nowhere 
threatened. But with us, as everywhere, the 
military spirit grows with the money spent on it. 
The more mouths fed by the State the greater the 
clamor for the feeding of still more. We have 
also to reckon with the desire for giant decora- 
tion, for big navies for sheer bigness' sake, the 
feeling that this is the richest and most progress- 
ive nation on the globe, and that as such she can 
beat old Europe at her own game even though 
that game be not worth the candle. 

But with all lapses and delinquencies the fact 
of internationalism and the ideal of democracy 
have been and must always remain with the 
United States, and from the United States these 

[si 



america'0 Conque0t of (Europe 

ideals will react with greater and greater force on 
the thoughts and deeds of Europe. 

Internationalism in America 

Internationalism is the heritage of America, 
not of choice at first, but of necessity. She has 
perforce grown up with this ideal, because no 
other was possible. She became the cosmopoli- 
tan nation of the world because of her complex 
origin. With this origin she could be nothing 
else. In a new civilization, in the struggles of 
the frontier each man is rated for what he is 
worth. Under these conditions no one cares for 
the petty precedences of rank or race. What a 
man can do in the next twenty-four hours out- 
values any question as to who were his an- 
cestors. 

On a railway train not long ago some one was 
overheard to say: "This is the land where all 
hate dies. My father was German; my mother 
was French. What do I care for all that? I 
am an American. The old hatreds and rivalries 
are nothing to me." 

[6] 



america'0 Conquest of (Europe 

The English Note Dominant 

America was English first. In language, in 
spirit, in conscience and in government it is still 
England which dominates. For the English 
race, above all others, with its adaptation for 
cooperation and for compromise, iS the builder of 
free states. 

It was the chosen among the Englishmen of 
three centuries ago who founded the germ colo- 
nies of Virginia and Maine and Massachusetts 
Bay. In the following years it has been the like- 
minded from their own nation and from others 
who have crossed the seas to enter into their work. 

The first who came were the bold, the free, the 
self -ruling, the pleasure-scorning element of Eng- 
lish life. They came to escape from the state- 
church and the church-state that they might 
worship in their own fashion and according to 
dictates of their individual consciences. They 
detested the law of primogeniture, which thrust 
the hated spirit of precedence into the bosom of 
every family. They abhorred the law of entail, 

[7] 



k 



America's Conquest of OButope 

which burdened die land with the curse of privi- 
lege even to unborn generations. 

They had caught from France the spirit of 
liberty, equality, fraternity, but, as befits the 
calmer blood of the north, they gave this spirit 
a constructive interpretation, and the idea of 
equality was to them especially rich in practical 
results. Equality before the law, equal access 
to land, to education, to professions and trades, 
equal access to legislation, — each of these con- 
ceptions broadened out into the spirit of democ- 
racy. 

And after England came other nations of 
Europe, each with its own part and in its own 
degree, giving its contingent of free-born men. 
The admixture of blood gave strength and ver- 
satility to the rising nation. But withal, the 
dominant note is English still, with as many di- 
vergences from the England of to-day as from the 
England of the Stuarts. 

"The Melting Pot'' 

In later years other immigration has come, not 
[8] 



America's: Conquest of (Europe 



alone the bold in search of adventure, of new 
homes and new freedoms, but the weak and the 
oppressed, "the beaten men of the beaten races," 
who flee from war taxation in search of living 
wages and of daily bread. But all these are 
cast into the same melting pot and in most of 
them there arises a clear response to the call of 
free institutions. 

In this melting pot of America all the old 
racial antipathies disappear and all hereditary 
hatreds. There is no final distinction of British 
or German, of French or Italian, of Spanish or 
Slav, of Dutch or Scandinavian, or of Jew or 
Gentile. The average American is as cosmo- 
politan in origin and relationship as is royalty 
in Europe, though for a different set of reasons. 
But in America there is no distinction of common 
or noble, of high or low, of aristocracy, bourgeoisie 
or proletariat, except as these are artificially 
emphasized in the industrial strife we have in- 
herited from Europe. 



[9] 



9metica'0 Conquest of Europe 

The Anglo-Saxon Alliance 

To the international mind of America, there 
seems no need or pertinence for an Anglo-Saxon 
alliance as against any other people. In so far 
as such alliance is desirable or humanly possible 
it exists already in a common sympathy and a 
common literature. It would be weakened by a 
stated agreement of the Anglo-Saxon group to 
swell each other's fleets with dreadnaughts. The 
true bond of union of the Greater Britain in- 
volves no rupture with the Greater Germany or 
the Greater France or the Greater Scandinavia to 
which we in America likewise claim allegiance. 

To the American, "Pan-Germanism," "Pan- 
Slavism," as he hears these expounded, seem a 
meaningless return to ideals of the Middle Ages. 
They remind him of the Holy Roman Empire, 
which never was, and should never be; or still 
more they hark back to Pan-Islam, — the futile 
dream of the fighting Turk. 

There is nothing in aggrandizement of race, 
as such, which appeals to the American, the child 
of all European races. That such races are en- 

[lO] 



amenca'0 Conque0t of (Europe 



nobled by conquest of lesser tribes and by their 
undigested exploitation he does not believe. In 
the eyes of the American even England's great- 
ness does not rest on her Indian Empire, but 
rather in spite of it. 
Interlocking Bonds of Civilization 

Within the last forty years there has grown up 
a new world in Europe, a new world in civiliza- 
tion. The old conception of the states of Europe 
as opposed to one another and mutually destruc- 
tive must pass away in the broader aspects of 
civilization. The days of Bismarck are almost 
as far away in the perspective of history as are 
those of his great prototype, the Hun, Attila. 

The growth of international life is one of the 
most striking features of this new relation. The 
extension of travel, the spread of commerce, the 
achievements of science, the exchanges in educa- 
tion, all these tend to make a great melting pot 
of the whole civilized world. Neither in his 
business, in his pleasures, nor in his intellectual 
pursuits is the educated man anywhere limited 

[II] 



america'0 Conquest of OBurope 



to any one country. All rational human interests 
are connected by interlocking bonds of many kinds, 
joining one people with another. The hundreds 
of international congresses held every summer the 
world over and covering almost every general in- 
terest of men is the strongest possible evidence of 
this interlocking, and all this constitutes an in- 
ternational bond not to be lightly severed. A 
declaration of war between nations is now little 
less than an attack on civilization in all its most 
cherished aspects, social, moral, as well as finan- 
cial. The lines of national policy taken for 
granted a half century ago are fast becoming 
impossible, their very suggestion being ruinous. 
And into this melting pot the nations of Asia 
must enter, not by mixture of blood but by align- 
ment of spirit, each in the proportion to which it 
has been reached by the spirit of internationalism. 
The influence of America tends toward in- 
ternational conciliation. It involves the recogni- 
tion of men as men, each valued for what he is 
or what he can do. Blood, origin, education, — 
each of these has its place, but only as a factor in 

[12] 



america'0 Conque0t of (Europe 

the final result, the qualities on which each man is 
judged. 

This is the spirit of the Vie Internationale^ the 
common life and common sympathy among civil- 
ized people, regardless of national boundaries. 
This international life constitutes the final and 
lasting basis of international peace. 

American Democracy 

As the history of America rests on international- 
ism, so is her social fabric built on democracy. 
Historically her democracy has a double origin. 
Its theory was French, its practice was English. 

^ The French philosophers furnished the one, the 
reaction against British methods the other. 

For inequality before the law is the foundation 
of the polity of Great Britain. Her constitu- 

L tion stands on privilege. Her social customs rest 
on precedence of classes, precedence of individuals. 
England chooses her lords and magnates, her 
patrons and tyrants, long before they are born. 
These belong to her system of privilege by which 
cities like Westminster, Sheffield, Devonport, 

[13] 



america'0 Conquest of OBurope 

Arundel, were so long held, virtually tax-free, 
by men whose ancestors received their lands as 
royal gifts or bought them as cow pastures. The 
law of favor rises above the law of justice. 

"America Means Opportunity" 

But men of the pioneer type, the Roundhead, 
the Pilgrim, the Puritan, the American, have 
hated favor and privilege and precedence of every 
form. The toll of the rich and the dole of the 
poor are alike offensive to them. And this dis- 
like of over-reaching and of coddling has passed 
over to their descendants. John Hay once said 
of the people of the new state of Ohio: "They 
looked on no one as their superiors, and on none 
as their inferiors. They knew no want they 
could not themselves satisfy,'' and to this Senator 
Bayard added the further note, "They were too 
self-willed and independent to allow any to rule 
over them but themselves." 

This in a word is the spirit of democracy, of 
the democracy of the pioneer if you like, but 
America is the land of pioneers, and this fact still 

[14] 



g[merica'0 Conque0t of ©urope 

influences all her acts and her institutions. Her 
people find their political ideals in an equal start 
with equal opportunity, in equality before the 
law, in equal access to the land, in equal access to 
education, in equal access to legislation. 

The Individual and the State 

The nation is built of individuals, each re- 
sponsible for himself. The state is a mutual 
adjustment for their collective benefit. The 
individual in America does not live for the state. 
He is not the property of the state. The state 
has no control over him except that which the 
individual has delegated. No supreme right of 
conscription or of manhandling is reserved by the 
state. It is no part of the duty of the state to 
promote his prosperity or the prosperity of his 
group. The state is rather the umpire which 
decides questions of justice, the servant by which 
the needs of the many are met by cooperation in 
so far as these needs are general and consonant 
with ideals of justice. 

As the founders of our state were frontiersmen 

[15] 



amenca'0 Conquest of OBurope 

scattered far and wide, without cities, without 
corporations, without great collective utilities, 
their democracy became that of individualism. 
The demands of society, of collective action, of 
national power were little considered because 
such demands did not exist, and they have never 
existed in the forms in which Europe knows them. 
And for this reason, if for no other, the native ^ 
American has not often been attracted to the 
various doctrines called socialism in Europe. 
Like conditions produce like results, and the 
growth of industrialism with its successes and its 
oppressions brings the same reactions here as in 
Europe. But as a matter of fact, those who 
take part in these reactions are for the most part 
recent immigrants, whose ideals of government 
even in democracy are collective, standing in 
strong contrast with the individualistic democ- 
racy native to the soil. 

*Taris in America" 

Fifty years ago, in 1863, Edouard Laboulaye 
published his remarkable book, "Paris en Ameri- 

[16] 



amerjca'0 Conquest of (Europe 

que" (Paris in America). Its motive was to 
show what a great city might become under the 
conditions of freedom which prevailed in America. 
This America was idealized, of course. It rep- 
resented the noblest ideals of free-born men, 
rather than the actual America, where the forces 
of democracy must strive with all the other forces 
extant in modern civilization. 

The influence of this volume was widespread 
and long-continued. It was my fortune to know 
two men of power, the one a Dane, the other a 
Swiss, who were drawn to America by the charm 
of Laboulaye and who were not disappointed. 
They found what they sought, and this is a 
perennial characteristic of the republic. Who- 
ever comes to America, and with whatever motive, 
will And what he seeks. If he remains long 
enough and has penetration to look below the sur- 
face he will find America. 

If one seeks religious freedom he will find it. 
Our fathers provided for that. Whatever form or 
type of religious discipline he seeks he will find 
accordingly, but its discipline is voluntary, not 

[17] 



America's Conquest of (Europe 

enforced by the state. If one would escape from 
all religious influence he can do so in America. It 
is for him to choose. 

If one ^eks for class distinctions, for domina- 
tion of the great over the small, hereditary or 
otherwise, he will find it, but personal and local 
only, not wrought into the fabric of society. If 
one would find privilege enthroned even as in 
Europe he will find it in America just as power- 
ful as in Europe, but everywhere surrounded by 
an equally powerful movement of insurgency. 
If one would find greed, selfishness, lust, vanity, 
V intolerance, anything which belongs to the dregs 
of human life, he will find it in America, and it 
may be embodied in powerful and defiant institu- 
tions. For freedom guarantees only freedom, 
and the meaning of freedom is opportunity. 

In Laboulaye's work the official Napoleonic 
view, which "Paris in America" takes as its point 
of departure, is thus expressed. "A society with- 
out administration, without army, without police, 
with the savage liberty of praying, speaking, 
writing, acting, — each in his fashion, — would not 

[i8] 



gimedca'0 Cpnque0t oJ OEurope 

last a quarter of an hour. It is the negation of 
all these principles, of all the conditions of this 
civilization, which makes the unity of our French 
nation. In constituting our administration, hier- 
archical and centralized, the wisdom of our 
fathers has long since raised France to the first 
rank and shown to the French people that liberty 
is obedience. There is our glory and our force."* 

The Ideals of America 

The ideal of America reverses all this. It is 
the building up of a society in which the govern- 
ment stands only for justice. The democratic 
state does not concern itself with right worship 
or wrong worship, with right thinking or wrong 
thinking, with writing truth or writing falsehood, 
with right acts or words or ceremonies, except as 
abuse of liberty may infringe on the liberty of 

* "Une societe sans administration, sans armee, sans gen- 
darmes, avec la liberte sauvage de prier, de penser, de 
parler, d'ecrire, d'agir, chacun a sa fagon ne durerait pas 
un quart d'heure. C'est la negation de tons ces principes, 
de toutes les conditions de cette civilization qui fait I'unite 
de la nation frangaise. En constituant notre administra- 
tion hierarchisee et centralisee, la sagesse de nos peres a 
depuis longtemps eleve la France au premier rang et appris 
aux Frangais que la liberte c'est I'obeissance. C'est la notre 
gloire et notre force." 

[19] 



gimetica'0 Conquest of OButope 

others. The state is not pious, benevolent, kind, 
generous, because these personal virtues cannot be 
exercised by officialism. The paternalism of the j 
state is the foundation of tyranny. Privilege i 
to the poor means privilege to the rich; privi- , 
lege to the rich means privilege to the poor, but 
always the more powerful arm secures the greater 
privilege. The essence of democracy is that no *^f 
one, rich or poor, should have a lease on privilege. 

American Prosperity 

The wealth of our republic does not rest on 
its great sweep of prairies, its mines or its com- 
merce. Its primal source is in its free schools, 
its freedom of movement, its freedom of choice of 
trade or profession. The results of this freedom 
can be measured in money as well as in power. 
Now as ever, "America means opportunity," 
opportunity for each man and woman to prepare 
for the work he can do best, opportunity for each 
to find his place in life, opportunity for the work 
that needs to be done to find the man who can 
do it. It is for each man in America to plan his 

[20] 



3men(a'0 Conquest of OBurope 

own career, to abolish his own poverty, to make 
his own escape "from status to contract." The 
democracy of America can acknowledge no mas- 
ters. It has servants, not rulers, in its official 
life and the power that makes these is adequate 
to set them aside. 

The Democratic State 

While every conception in Europe has its re- 
flex in America, while every idea of administra- 
tion from absolutism to anarchy finds its earnest 
advocates, no other ideal seems likely to displace 
the fundamental one of democratic individualism 
developed by the fathers of the republic. This 
ideal was expressed by Lincoln, as long before 
him by Aristotle. It is the function of the 
state to establish justice among men and to per- 
form those acts of common necessity, contribu- 
ting to the preservation and enjoyment of human 
life which collective action can accomplish better 
than private effort. Further than that, democ- 
racy, which is simply enforced cooperation, 
should not go. By the fact that no theory of 

[21] 



america'0 Conquest of OBurope 

government in America is pushed beyond the con- 
sideration of its practical results, the republic 
escapes the choice of any single one among the 
hundreds of remedies for political ills. There 
is no possibility of the adoption of anarchism, 
socialism, collectivism or individualism or any 
other system as an exclusive and excluding | 
finality. The people of America are interested in ^'f 
actual results rather than any form of logical 
necessity as a ground for political action. 

The Test of National Solidarity 

The test of national solidarity may be found in 
its freedom from the need of force in the conduct j 
of its affairs. Let us imagine, if we can, a ! 
catastrophe which should remove from the United j 
States every representative of coercive power, | 
every official of whatever rank from the President I 
to the last notary public, every representative of j 
army or of navy or of church, every policeman, 
every authority of whatever kind. 

Such a loss might create widespread bewilder- 
ment or profound sorrow. It would have no 

[22] 



ametica'0 Conque0t of OBurope 

relation to anarchy. Except among certain un- 
assimilated foreign populations in large cities it 
would lead to no violence, to no riots. The 
functions of national life would go on as before, 
all of them, and unchanged. One by one com- 
munities would come together and provide for the 
election of officers. 

Let us apply the same test to other nations. 
In the France of Napoleon III we are assured that 
without force society would not endure *'for a 
quarter of an hour." Wliat would be the result 
in Germany to-day *? No one can tell. The 
German is endlessly patient, even under needless 
burdens. What would he do, if burdens were 
all suddenly thrown off, if ''Strengstens Ver- 
hoten^'' the motto of Prussian rule, were suddenly 
found to have no force behind it^ 

The lesson of democracy is therefore the lesson 
of the United States. It teaches the true source 
of power. It is no new lesson. The people of 
the United States are merely European people 
who have had some additional experience, have 
learned some things in their travels, perhaps for- 

[23] 



america'0 Conquest of (Europe 

getting some others equally important. In like 
manner the choicest thoughts and worthiest ideals 
of America are thoughts and ideals long before 
treasured by the advanced minds of Europe. 

American Federation 

Another lesson from America is that of effec- 
tive federation. The United States is composed 
of forty-eight self-governing states, each an entity 
within itself, managing its own affairs, with its 
own officials and its own laws, controlled by the 
nation in those interests only which it shares with 
its sister states. Some of these states are as popu- 
lous and wealthy as the kingdoms of Europe, but 
each is a jurisdiction, not a power. None can 
make war alone, either by force of arms or force 
of tariffs or by force of discrimination among 
nations. While there is all machinery for settling 
disputes between states, such disputes never arise, | 
because no state has the right 'to use its force to 
promote private business. 

Nations as Jurisdictions 

The states in a federal union exist solely as 

[24] 



3metica'0 Conquest of OButope 

jurisdictions. The small ones have no fear of 
the large ones, and those not touching the sea 
suffer in no way from their restricted position. 
A "power" hampered as is the state of Illinois 
would chafe against its limitations, and its militar- 
ists would talk of fighting their way to the ocean. 
But viewed as a jurisdiction, surrounded by 
similar jurisdictions, the people of Illinois have 
no consciousness of limitation. 

And this should be our ultimate conception of 
a nation. Its boundary line should represent 
merely the limit of jurisdiction. That jurisdic- 
tion ceases does not imply need of violence be- 
tween the people on the two sides, nor require 
fortification for the purpose of repelling violence. 
The Canadian boundary is an example of this 
meeting of nations not as powers but as jurisdic- 
tions. 

The Canadian Boundary 

This four-thousand-mil^ line, ranging through 
all kinds of territory and all sorts of conditions, 
has for nearly a hundred years not known a fort- 

[25] 



america'g Conquest of OButope 

ress, a soldier, a warship or a gun. It is a peace 
boundary, the limit of the jurisdiction of one self- 
governing nation, the beginning of that of another. 
It lacks but one thing to make it ideally perfect, — 
the removal of the custom-house, the emblem of 
national suspicion and greed, the remnant of the 
days when it was considered good economics for 
a nation to "have its taxes paid by foreigners." 

Nations as "Powers'* 

Viewed as ''great powers" devoted to the ex- 
ploitation of the wealth of other regions, the 
leading nations of Europe are in constant turmoil. 
The German Empire, for example, is hampered 
on every side. Her scant sea-coast is split in two 
by the presence of Denmark. Her German Rhine 
discharges itself through Holland. The ports of 
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Ostend, 
geographically hers, are occupied by alien people 
whom she could crush out in a moment, were it 
not for the physical force of the rest of Europe 
and, still more effective, the moral power of the 
world. Of Poland she has too much or too little. 

[26] 



g[merica'0 Conquest of OButope 

A large part of the German people live in the 
alien empire of Austria-Hungary and in the re- 
public of Switzerland, while after forty years of 
possession, German scarcely owns Alsace or 
Lorraine. These states are a thorn in the side of 
the Empire, a burden and a weakness, just so 
long as their two millions of people are held in 
semi-vassalhood by the rule of force. A free 
republic of Alsace-Lorraine, a second Switzer- 
land, half-German, half-French, separating and 
joining two great nations would be a strength and 
an inspiration to both. The twin gateways of 
the Rhine held by the power of blood and iron 
now form a center of menace to civilization. 
For the wrong done at the Treaty of Frankfort 
forty years ago Europe has had to pay most dearly, 
for it is around the question of Alsace-Lorraine 
that half the crushing armament of Europe has 
been built up. In the discord this has engendered 
the great armament builders who know no nation- 
ality have found their opportunity. Germany 
is hemmed in everywhere by the scare of old strug- 
gles, to her perennial discomfort. For this reason 

[27] 



ametica'g Conquest of Curope 

she suffers from the ''Drang nach Osten" she 
seeks a road to the Persian Gulf, an empire over 
seas, and every form of imperial extension to lands 
"under the sun," which may for the moment seem 
plausible or possible. 

But Germany as a jurisdiction suffers none of 
these limitations. She has all the power which 
can be used for her people's good. It matters 
nothing that her sway is checked on almost every 
side before it reaches the sea. Other jurisdic- 
tions intervene, and each of these looks in its way 
after the public needs of man, which are mostly 
justice, conservation, education, sanitation and 
peace. 

As one of the "great powers" of the world, 
Germany (with her fellow states as well) is a 
center of friction, injustice and unrest. As a 
jurisdiction Germany is busy with profitable and 
constantly advancing industries, with her won- 
derful system of education and her extensive pro- 
vision for all the people's needs. No enlarge- 
ment of boundaries could in the least increase the 
usefulness, the wealth or the happiness of her 

[28] 



America's Conquest of dEutope 

people. As a "power" Germany is a menace to 
the well-being of civilization, as every other 
"power" of similar nature must be in its degree. 
For the prosperity of every people depends on 
international peace, and all power-manifesta- 
tions are either actual or potential war. 

The peace of force is merely frustrate war. 
War is a form of world-sickness from which every 
function of civilization suffers, and most of all 
those bonds of common thought and common 
interest summed up in internationalism. To us 
in America as members of an international com- 
monwealth, German in blood and in sympathy 
as well as English, all these destructive rivalries 
of nation with nation seem mediseval and un- 
worthy. There is, in fact, something primitive, 
outworn and unprogressive in the spectacle of a 
civilized nation composed of millions of clever 
people trusting for its defense to forts and ships. 
With all the resources of business, of science, of 
education, of thought, to depend on force seems 
a lazy, even cowardly, shirking of the higher 
possibilities of national strength. To be sur- 

[29] 



ametica'0 Conquest of OEutope 

rounded by anned guards, "holding the drop" on 
all commercial rivals, is not a lofty conception of 
a nation's greatness. This attitude has been as 
disastrous to England's own peace of mind as 
it has been menacing to the world's welfare. 

To escape from this condition is not a matter 
of a day nor a generation. It is not easy for 
America even to emancipate herself from reaction- 
ary influences of Europe. There are many in- 
terests in a wealthy nation who find an aid or an 
affinity in militarism. Debt creates debt, and 
those interested in spending band together against 
reform. 

These matters proceed by slow progress, in- 
terrupted by reaction. We are in a period of 
relapse at present, when reactionary forces seem 
to be in the ascendant. But this very fact with 
its burdens and horrors may be counted on to 
turn the balance in the other direction. 

The United States of Europe 

There will be no formal federation of nations 
in this era. Indeed, federation in fact will come 

[30] 



america'0 Conquest of OEurppe 

long before it comes in name. The United States 
of Europe will exist before it receives a distinctive 
title. A single unified world-government with 
centralized rule under one set of men at some 
one place is only a dream, — and not a cheerful 
dream at that. What the world needs is more 
self-control, more local responsibility, not more 
governmental machinery. Nevertheless, every 
step in removing injustice, in eliminating sources 
of friction, in extending common interests, — as 
the postal union, the telegraph union, inter- 
national law, international police duties, inter- 
national conferences and congresses, arbitration 
treaties and other agreements, — are steps in the 
direction of the passing of war. To this end, 
three great contributing agencies are: the growth 
of the popular conscience, the interlocking of 
personal interests, and the ruinous expense which 
the progress of science has brought to every 
branch of the military art. 

All this has its part in the great movement 
toward common international life, "La Vie Inter- 
nationale'' of the dreams of La Fontaine, a life 

[31] 



amenca'0 Conquest of OEutope 

which shall make war impossible, and will, in time, 
do away with exploitations, with tariff barriers 
and with all the products of that narrow nativism 
which considers only the purposes of enrichment 
of the selfish few, the one in-group against all 
the out-groups of the world. 

Open Diplomacy 

Another lesson which the United States may 
teach is the value of open diplomacy. A secret 
treaty or a secret agreement of any kind on the 
part of our Department of State has no validity 
whatever. It was a warning of Washington that 
his nation should beware of entangling alliances. 
A formal alliance is for the purpose of making 
enemies, never of making friends. Friendship 
among nations rests on common interests, on the 
interlocking of minds, the interlocking of trade. 

In the United States a treaty can be entered 
into only with the open and public consent of the 
Senate. Every international relation is there- 
fore open to the world. No minister, no presi- 
dent, no group of men whatever can secretly 

[32] 



ametica'0 Conquest oJ (Europe 

pledge the nation to any line of action. No 
president, no cabinet, no minister, no congress 
acting alone can make any declaration of public 
policy. For these reasons the United States must 
stand outside the tangled snare of concessions 
and intrigues we call world politics. She must 
play her games of diplomacy with open hands. 
She cannot be the secret friend of any other 
nation. She cannot be the secret enemy, because 
all her acts, friendly or hostile, are known to all 
the world. 

The Secret Treaty 

The secret treaty in the interest of imperial 
spoliation is the bane of Europe. It ties each 
foreign office to the service of the most reckless 
and greedy of its great exploiting interests. It 
has reduced the chancelleries of more than one 
nation to be nothing more than the firm name 
under which its exploiting corporations compass 
their ends in Asia or in Africa. 

The secret treaty is a relic of the military 
state. The civilized world is still organized on 

[33] 



america'0 Conque0t of OButope 

the mediaeval theory that war is a natural function 
to be expected in the normal course of events, not 
a hideous moral, physical, and financial catastro- 
phe. In the old theory as expounded by Machi- 
avelli, the prince has no other business but war. 
It is the duty of his ministers to find weak places 
in the defenses of other kings through which war 
may be successful, and to find, after the fact, 
excuses by which war can be justified. The 
secret treaty, the concession to a friendly power, 
the artificial interference with a rival, — all these 
belong to the days of Machiavelli. If all par- 
ties concerned could come out into the open, where 
the United States is forced to stand, we should 
soon have an end to the great European rivalry 
of to-day. The Triple Alliance and the Triple 
Entente which follows it as a shadow, — neither 
the one nor the other represents any idea or pur- 
pose of any permanent value to the world. 

Outworn ideas of national glory, outworn fig- 
ures of speech as to national purposes, outworn 
medisevalism in our conception of the state, — all 
these find expression in the "secret treaty," the 

[34] 



america'0 Conquest of OEutope 

"entangling alliance," which is a chief obstacle 
in the way of the conciliation of nations. 

The Monroe Doctrine and the Drago Doctrine 

Historically, the influence of America has been 
exerted in opposition to imperialism and to in- 
fringement of the great nations on the rights of 
the small. This is the inceprion of the Monroe 
Doctrine, which, in spite of its perversion and its 
wrong accentuation, has protected Latin America 
from the fate of Africa. That this should now 
be a Pan-American, not merely an American, doc- 
trine of the United States, goes without saying. 
And it must never be allowed to degenerate into 
"a Dollar Diplomacy" which would reserve Trop- 
ical America as a special "sphere of influence" for 
American exploitation. For the true and final 
form of the Monroe Doctrine is found in the 
Drago Doctrine of the republics of South America, 
that the force of arms should not be used as an in- 
strument in industrial spoliation. This doctrine 
the people of the United States should adopt as 
their own. 

[35] 



america'is Conque0t of dBurope 

In a recent decision of arbitration the King 
of Sweden laid down this principle: that a na- 
tion "has no right to land troops in order to pre- 
serve the property or the rights of her nationals/' 
This principle has been disregarded in the strang- 
ling of Persia, the rape of Mongolia and of Tibet, 
in the chronic robbery of China, and in the annex- 
ation of Eg}^pt, of Korea, of Morocco and of Trip- 
oli. But it is for all that a just and honorable 
principle. No nation, by virtue of superior 
strength or superior civilization, is justified in tak- 
ing possession of another for its good, still less for 
the good of its own exploiting industries. 

It is true that some of the smaller nations of 
the tropics are subject to violent political disturb- 
ances. They have not learned the value of lib- 
erty as regulated by law. Yet it is highly prob- 
able that not one in ten of these periodical revolu- 
tions is of spontaneous native origin. Most of 
them are started for purposes of spoliation by out- 
side adventurers and a large majority are paid for 
by agents belonging to one or more of the great 
commercial nations of the earth. When the 

[36] 



america'0 Conque0t of (Europe 

final truth is known of unhappy Mexico the re- 
sponsibility for her disorders will rest not on her 
martyred president, nor on the soldiers of fortune 
by whose hands he fell, but on those, wherever 
situated, whose money has kept these revolutions 
going. Mexico, with fatal riches of oil and gold, 
is not the first nation to be torn asunder by con- 
flicting "spheres of influence." 

The Control of the Sea 

The influence of the republic has been always 
thrown against another form of imperialism in- 
volved in the phrase "Control of the Sea." 
America has never claimed any such control, nor 
has she admitted any such right of others. It is 
a mediaeval idea going back four hundred years 
to the time when the great seas were divided be- 
tween Spain and Portugal. America has stood for 
the open sea, the restriction of national jurisdic- 
tion to the three-mile limit, the extermination of 
piracy, and in later years for the most important 
doctrine of the immunity of merchant vessels from 
seizure or destruction in time of war. To make 

[37] 



america'0 Conquest of €utope 

the high seas an open highway to be traversed at 
any time in absolute safety by any vessel whatever 
would go far toward doing away with interna- 
tional war, and still further in removing the 
heavy and dangerous burden of naval protection. 
If all military operations at sea could be confined 
to the limit of a cannon shot from the shore, the 
original motive of the three-mile limit of juris- 
diction, it would represent one of the most prac- 
tical triumphs of civilization. The nations 
should join to make the ocean safe for their mu- 
tual use. It is a monstrous anachronism to fill it 
with floating fortresses designed to protect mer- 
chant ships from robbery by the very persons with 
whom they trade. It is never good business, as 
Franklin once observed, "to knock your custo- 
mers on the head." 

The Separation of Religion from Politics 

Still another lesson from America is the divorce 
of religion from political control and therefore 
from the domain of politics. Absolute religious 
freedom exists in America because the state as- 

[38] 



america'0 Conqueist oJ ©utope 

sumes no relation of any kind to religious corpor- 
ations as such. So long as these do not interfere 
with the freedom of soul or body of men not be- 
longing to them, their acts do not concern the 
state. And on no one policy is there more firm 
agreement in America, than in the absolute sep- 
aration of church and state. The public school 
exists everywhere at the public expense, and no- 
where can any sect or group of sects claim any 
dominating relation in regard to it. To the aver- 
age American the strife over church properties 
and church interests, so real in Europe, seems in- 
comprehensible. The church, any church, is in 
every way better off for separation from the gov- 
ernment. Whatever achievement, whatever prog- 
ress it may make is its own, and this progress is 
solid, because it involves no ulterior politi- 
cal end. 

Justice and Benevolence 

Connected with the freedom of the church is the 
freedom of the people from other forms of pater- 
nalism. The state becomes benevolent only 

[39] 



america'0 Conquest of (Bmopt 

when it has failed to be just. It allows special 
opportunities to individuals only where it has 
denied opportunity to men at large. 

The "old-age pension" is a convenient illustra- 
tion. It has been justly compared to the free pass 
homeward granted to the human wrecks who have 
lost their all in the gambling rooms of Monte 
Carlo. It is the shilling given to the man run 
over by my lord's automobile. In a better sys- 
tem he would not have been run over. He would 
not have lost his money in a vile resort. He 
would not have needed an outside pittance to 
carry him through old age. 

The "old-age pension" exists in England as 
a convenient balm for inequality and injustice. 
The best of her workers have died in her wars, 
leaving a weaker stock from which she has bred. 
These have grown up unskilled, in default of the 
schools that make men strong. They have grown 
up in the atmosphere of the public house, sodden 
with lust and beer and whisky. They have lost 
the opportunity that should be theirs, and at the 
end their fellows must be taxed to feed them. 

[40] 



9merica'0 Conque0t of OBurope 

The tragedy of the East End of London is no nor- 
mal part of the tragedy of life. It is no part of 
normal civilization. It is no part of a nation 
which has given opportunity. 

But in America, a new country, fresh, unspoiled, 
full of life and hope, it is possible to hold govern- 
ment to its rigid purpose, to develop opportunity 
by the elimination of privilege, teach men to lean 
not on government but on themselves, and to aid 
by fraternal giving those who have fallen in the 
press; not to weaken by unearned public money 
those who are falling but who can be made to 
stand. The way of the transgressor is hard and 
we would not make it easier if we could ; we could 
not if we would. To give a man a chance to rise, 
is to allow him also the choice to fall. 

The "old-age pension" is, so far as it goes, a 
confession of failure of government. Except as 
a measure of emergency, its real purpose in Eng- 
land, it has no justification in good government. 
Clean up the social atmosphere, restore to the 
people what is rightfully theirs, and they will care, 
rare accidents excepted, for their own old age. 

[41] 



amenca'0 Conquest of ©urope 

Labor and Capital 

In America the struggle between labor and 
capital can never assume the form it has in Eu- 
rope. In a government which stands for justice, 
and which is in no way occupied with making 
money for its people, nor from its people, nor in 
supporting exploiting interests in other lands, 
there is no visible necessity for universal collec- 
tive ownership. Where classes do not really 
exist there is no pertinence in the artificial distinc- 
tions of aristocracy, proletariat and bourgeoisie 
which have been so laboriously brought over from 
Europe. If these distinctions exist, most of us in 
America belong to one single class, that of the 
bourgeoisie. The use of violence in social dis- j 
agreements is treason to democracy. For under j 
democracy there can be no permanent classes, and 
no disagreements which cannot be settled in peace. 

The Growth of Great Fortunes 

There exist in America, as elsewhere, vast for- 
tunes, disproportionate to the ability or the ef- 
forts of those who control them. But their his- 

[42] I 



ametica's Conque0t of OBurope 

tory has been of short duration. They are not 
legacies from an unjust past. Their origin be- 
longs to the present. It is mainly individual. 
Great luck, great skill or ingeniously managed 
privilege stands behind each of them. By the 
same means as in Europe, by cooperation through 
interlocking directorates, these great fortunes 
have been made to stand together and thus by a 
process of financial suction to build up fortunes 
still greater. But one most important difference 
exists. Our national government, in theory and 
for the most part in fact, stands aloof from these 
combinations. The control of public affairs, even 
of financial matters, is in the long run beyond their 
reach. Their influence on foreign diplomacy is 
limited because no secret influence can control, 
and the power of money for evil is mostly lost in 
publicity. In all their operations, they are sur- 
rounded by an alert and in the long run victorious 
opposition of democracy. 

The Rule of Property 

In America property may rule, but only for a 
time. In the earlier centuries of Europe, tlie 

[43] 



america's Conqum of ©urope 

period of Absolutism, when monarchy was a po- 
litical power, not a function of society, it was of 
course true that property ruled. The ruler held 
the property. It was his by force of position. 
Not until the money lenders of the last century, 
the Unseen Empire of Finance, secured the 
strangle hold on the nations of Europe was this 
condition brought to an end. 

Then again property ruled, but kings and 
nobles no longer held the property. Property 
held them. In Europe to-day money rules, and 
it rules king and peasant alike, for in most nations 
everything else hinges on the imperial exploitation 
of foreign lands. 

In America this is true in a degree, but the rule 

of money has its visible limits. The United j 

States belongs to its people, not the people to the | 

state. 

I 
While in Europe generally, the alliance be- - 

tween financial interests and the government is 
open and avowed, such connections in America 
have proved fatal to political leaders and to po- 
litical parties. The methods by which the "pow- 

[44] 



america's Conquest oJ ©urope 

ers of Europe" through their foreign offices bolster 
up adventures in foreign lands could not be 
used in America. The diplomacy of persuasion, 
threats or force of arms in the interest of private 
ventures would be impossible here. The people 
might consent to "Dollar Diplomacy," but only 
until its nature is understood. The recent repu- 
diation of our relation to the "Six-Power Loan" 
to China will serve as a case in point. 

Privilege in Democracy 

And here again we must admit that our demo- 
cratic conception of government has to struggle 
for acceptance in America. The protective tariff 
in theory and in practice is a direct contradiction of 
its principles. It is a flat violation of the spirit of 
the American constitution. It is privilege pure 
and simple granted to the few by the many, in 
the belief that in the long run the many would 
profit by it. Its purpose was to diversify indus- 
tries by letting the farmer help pay the expenses 
of the manufacturer. It has had just that effect, 
and the farmer and the laborer are becoming in- 

[45] 



america'0 Conquest of dBurope 

creasingly discontented with its burdens and the 
inequalities before the law which are part and 
parcel of its operations. 

Militarism in Democracy 

In America the army and navy, though the 
latter has grown beyond all reason through the 
rivalry from England and Germany, still repre- 
sent a democratic ideal. We still hold to the 
thought that our officers are not rulers but serv- 
ants of the people. 

Our military element stands near the parting 
of the ways, for all officialism tends to aggrandize 
itself, most of all that which is associated with 
pomp and with patriotism. Militarism for its 
own sake belongs to the state in which property 
rules. "It furnishes," says John A. Hobson, "a 
profitable support to certain strong vested inter- 
ests. It is a decorative element in social life and, 
above all, it is necessary to keep down the pres- 
sure of the forces of internal reform." 

The ideals of militarism and democracy can 
never exist together. And this nation is too far 

[46] 



America's Conque0t oC OEutope 

given over to democracy ever to do more than 
dally with the military ideal. In a nation that 
knows no caste and has no aristocracy other than 
temporary and self-selected, no military traditions 
will ever be permanent. There can never be a 
warrior caste holding special privilege or special 
authority. Military conscription, the manhand- 
ling of the individual in the interest of the state, 
is a defiance of democracy. 

The Man and the State 

As a people, we of the United States are too 
rich in resources of wealth, of education and of in- 
telligence to be controlled by influences of militar- 
ism. And thus and for the same reasons, in the 
republic of America, the state exists for the man, 
not the man for the state. This is the funda- 
mental difference between German polity and our 
own. It is the fundamental difference between 
the Eighteenth Century and Twentieth. And 
let us speed the day when it may be said not only 
that "America means Opportunity" but that the 
same hopeful word may be spoken of Germany 

[47] 



america's Conquest of (Europe 

and England and France and Russia and of all 
the nations of the sisterhood of civilization. 

America and World Peace 

Within the last few months the President and 
the Secretary of State have planned a most prac- 
tical and effective means of bringing American in- 
fluence to bear on the problems of world peace. 

The end in view is to relegate war to a position 
of last resort in times of international difference, 
to place soldiers and dreadnaughts in the back- 
ground, — not in the front of national movement. 

The essence of this American policy is that in 
case of friction between nations the matter be 
placed for six months in the hands of a joint high 
commission of investigation, chosen in part from 
the contending nations, the majority from 
friendly neutrals. These for six months shall 
study the question at issue, neither nation in the 
meantime demonstrating, mobilizing or increas- 
ing the armament, until the final report is made. 
After this each nation is free to choose concilia- 
tion, concession, compromise, arbitration or war. 

[48] 



g[metica'0 Conque0t of OBurope 

And with six months to think it over, there will 
be no war. The topic will leave the front pages 
of the newspapers and the populace will turn its 
vagrant attention to something else. Wars are 
waged for greed, for politics, or because the mob 
has been stirred by senseless speech for reckless 
journalism. And in many cases this reckless 
journalism has been carefully calculated and fully 
paid for by those interested in the sale of the ac- 
cessories of war. 

The treaty of arbitration will naturally follow 
on the treaty for investigation. Courts will nat- 
urally supplement results of friendly offices. 
But the agreement for friendly conference comes 
first and is for the present the more important. 
The treaty of arbitration is most valuable, — not 
as preventing war, for a nation bent on war, if 
there is such a case, will not stop to agree to ar- 
bitrate. The world is finally ruled by public 
opinion. Arbitration treaties clinch public opin- 
ion and hold it to its duty. 

The present decade has been characterized by 
needless, costly and brutal wars, the result not of 

[49] 



1 

9merica'0 Conquest of Curope 

actual conditions of to-day, but of blunders and 
crimes committed in the past. Wars do not 
spring up afresh in our civilization. They spring 
from old wars whose seeds were not destroyed by 
peace. 

But however dark the present outlook may seem 
with half the coined money of the world spent 
each year on war and war's accessories, the far 
outlook is most promising. The cruel horror of 
the Balkan war, of the ''Squalid War" and the 
"Mad War" into which the war for freedom 
lapsed at last, the waste of armed peace and 
frustrate war throughout the civilized world, — 
all these make powerfully for peace, for real 
peace, — the peace of law and trust, and not the 
peace of force and dread. 

And just now is the time when American in- 
fluence can be most definitely crystallized and 
made effective. And we are thankful that we 
have in the seats of authority men who definitely 
work for peace and whom war and war's fripper- 
ies do not dazzle nor attract. 

[50] 



america's Cpnque0t of ©utope 

The Movement of Civilization 

Lord Acton thus sums up the movement of 
civilization: "It is by the combined efforts of 
the weak made under compulsion to resist the 
reign of force and constant wrong, that, in the 
rapid change and slow progress of four hundred 
years. Liberty has been preserved and secured and 
extended and finally understood." 

Democracy and Peace 

And as America comes to understand her own 
message of democracy, internationalism and 
peace, she will carry this understanding back to 
the motherland of Europe. The peace movement 
is in itself but a part of the great world-movement 
toward democracy, the growing recognition of 
the value of the individual man, amid all the 
frippery and sham which have obscured or re- 
tarded his development. 



[51] 



of (SIfcnt 



Mavih P? arf anb tlj? ®trf at^ 

To the American, the honored name of Ghent 
brings up many and varied associations. It is not 
its wealth in memories of stirring scenes; not its 
great bell Roland; not its imperial splendors of 
the past nor its successes, industrial and commer- 
cial, of to-day. It is its relation to the peace of the 
world which commands our first interest. A hun- 
dred years ago, a treaty was signed in this city, 
the Treaty of Ghent, a document that means much 
in this history of America, one that foreshadows 
much in the history of Europe. 

On the 24th day of December, in 1814, the 
Treaty of Ghent put an end forever to armed strife 
among the English-speaking races. And by the 
same token, this renewal of good-will looks for- 
ward from the larger Britain to the larger Europe 

[55] 



morlD peace anD ©bent Creatp 

which shall put aside its misunderstandings and 
its suspicions in the interest of the people's welfare 
and the world's peace. 

The needless war of l8l2, between Great Brit- 
ain and the United States, was not a war of greed 
nor a war of conquest. Had it been either it 
would have been unutterably futile, for both sides 
lost much and neither gained anything. It was 
a war for honor — just as futile, for no nation's 
honor can be saved by the wholesale slaughter of 
men, least of all, of men in no way responsible for 
the assumed affront. It is true that the mother 
nation had taken certain liberties with the rights 
of her newly enfranchised progeny, and that for 
this infringement the people of America asked an 
expiation in blood. But the field of battle carries 
no balm for a nation's honor. The sole content 
of the Treaty of Ghent was "Cease firing." On 
both sides men were weary of the pointless strug- 
gle and at its end each nation stood where it was 
before. Even the question of honor was left 
unsatisfied, forgotten in the stress of land-fight 
and sea-fight. This question remained in abey- 

[S6] 



mptlD Peace anD ©ftent Creatp 

ance for nearly a century later, to be settled quietly 
and rationally at last by a tribunal at The Hague. 
And the hue and cry having ceased, only the few 
concerned on either side knew anything of the set- 
tlement. This final adjustment without strife, 
without emotion, should serve as a type, whenever 
questions of honor occur between men and na- 
tions. In the fine words of Admiral Winslow, 
'There is no difference between nations so trivial 
that they will not fight over it if they want to 
fight. There is no difference so fundamental that 
it cannot be settled in peace and mutual respect 
if both sides are willing to be just and patient." 

On its face, the Treaty of Ghent settled noth- 
ing, but in this very fact lies its importance. It 
decided nothing because it registered merely the 
results of war. The war decided nothing. The 
treaty marked the resolution of two nations to 
stop fighting, because by war nothing could be de- 
cided. Between the lines one may read the verdict. 
It implies that war is not glory, but calamity, that 
its continuance brings nothing but evil. 

Thus the Treaty of Ghent was in fact the germ 

[57] 



morlD peace anD aftent Creatp 

of the modern movement against war and war's 
accessories. Very soon after this treaty two pa- 
triots, whose names should be honored whenever 
men meet to cement international friendships, met 
and passed to the next state of agreement. Sir 
Qiarles Bagot, Governor of Canada, and Richard 
Rush, Secretary of the Treasury of the United 
States, prepared the Rush-Bagot Convention. 
This provided that there should be no warships on 
the Great Lakes which join the United States and 
Canada. And ever since that time, for nearly a 
hundred years, this long boundary, now nearly 
4,000 miles long, has been a boundary of peace 
without a warship or a fortress, a soldier or a gun. 
Its line traverses territory of every sort, mountain, 
valley, forest, river and lake. It has been dis- 
puted nearly all the way "with all the brutal 
frankness common to blood relations." But there 
has been no battle, no war scare, no suspicion. 
Where there are no soldiers there is no war. 
When nobody is loaded, nothing explodes. It is 
plain enough that with the border bristling with 
fortresses, collisions would have been inevitable. 

[58] 



motlt} peace anU aftent Creatp 

A border unfortified is a border protected. In 
the absence of force, law rules, and peace is the 
duration of the law. Law is another name for 
peace. 

And this Canada, the bone of contention in mil- 
itary times, is now the permanent guarantee of 
peace among the peoples of the Greater Britain. 
Connected with the United States by the closest 
ties of blood and of business, of common interest 
and of common destiny, with England by the ties 
of blood, of tradition, and of loyalty, there is no 
room for strife among the three. They meet as ju- 
risdictions, not as powers. Sooner or later the na- 
tions of Europe must meet in like fashion. In the 
fullness of civilization, no nation should threaten 
another through armed force. Without offense 
there is no need of defense. A jurisdiction is a 
creation of law, an exemplification of order and 
peace. A "power" is a danger to itself, a menace 
to its neighbors. The present relation of Euro- 
pean powers, bankrupt in credit, armed to the teeth, 
is an expression of a double catastrophe. It is de- 
structive to itself and to civilization as well. And 

[59] 



motlt} peace anD ©ftent Creatg 

the present conditions in Europe cannot be perma- 
nent. 

A suggestion as to the ultimate future of civil- 
ized nations is found in the self-controlling colo- 
nies of Great Britain, and in the self-governing 
states of the federal Union. Each of the United 
States is an independent jurisdiction so far as its 
local affairs are concerned, while each is bound to 
refrain from all that could injure the others. This 
shows in outline the possibilities among the states 
of Europe. For effective federation it is not nec- 
essary that the central power should control the 
details of government, or even that these should 
be unified in any great degree. The conception 
of the United States of Europe in which all poli- 
tics shall radiate from a central capital, with a 
common ruler and a common ministry, offers a very j 
remote prospect, and not a cheerful one at that. 
The lines of union should be moral, economic, and 
commercial rather than political, and in reality the 
basis for such union exists, could it only be visual- 
ized in the face of Europe's costly militarism. 
The International Postal Union, the Telegraph 

[60] 



moxlt peace anD ©ftent Creatg 

Union, the Monetary Union are effective signs and 
results of the Union that actually exists. And the 
hundreds of international Congresses all over the 
civilized world, of which the present meeting at 
Ghent is not the least example, show what should 
be the animating spirit. 

As jurisdictions, the nations of Europe neither 
fear nor hate one another. A traveler passes 
from one to another secure in his safety and in 
his rights. The nations of great population and 
wide extent have no real superiority over the 
smaller states, while in most matters of personal 
freedom and individual prosperity the citizens of 
the lesser nations have the positive advantage. 
'To find a great nation in Europe," says Albert 
Cobat, "one must look among the smaller states." 

It is only where a nation is considered as a 
"power" and not as a jurisdiction, that the advan- 
tage lies with the larger state. It is the advantage 
that goes with large battalions. A "power" can 
protect itself by force; a jurisdiction depends on 
justice and law. A "power" can do mischief at 
a distance, a jurisdiction is bounded by its own 

[6 1] 



IQorlD Peace anD ©ftent Creatp 

affairs. It is true that each power disclaims any 
intention of aggression. But no other power trusts 
this disclaimer. Yet, viewing Europe from the 
outside, it seems fully justified. No one can be- 
lieve any one power in Western Europe, outside 
its mediaeval Balkans, has designs on any other. 
The war scares of Germany and England seem 
to the outside spectator among the idlest of super- 
stitions. They are comparable to the fear of the 
Feng-Shui, the Earth Spirit, so long used to 
frighten the Chinese. They are the deliberate 
work of men whose gains depend on the people's 
fears. No civilized nation of to-day could afford 
to attack another, not alone on account of the cost 
piled high upon its crushing debts of the past, but 
rather on account of the shock to civilization, the 
dislocations of finance and of commerce, the dis- 
locations of friendships and of common ideals, the 
reversion to the ape and tiger morals of mediseval 
days, when the citizen was the prey of the army 
as well as the slave of the state. 

The people of the American Republic are simply 
Europeans who have had some additional experi- 

[62] 



COorlD peace an& ©ftent Creatp 

ence. They have learned much, while they have 
forgotten some things they might well have re- 
membered. They have thrown off the influence 
of caste and aristocracy. They have revolted 
against hereditary assignments of their station in 
life. They have risen from "status to contract." 
They have undertaken to do for themselves much 
that in Europe is done by the state. In particular 
they have made their own churches, each accord- 
ing to his own conscience. They have founded 
their own free schools, and they have established 
a government which belongs to the people, and to 
the people who belong to themselves. No man 
in America is owned by the state, not one required 
as a sacrifice to the nation except as he may dedi- 
cate himself of his own free will and accord to a 
cause he may himself deem adequate. 

America is an international state built up from 
freeborn men of every race and nationality. In 
so far as her people are true to themselves, they 
have cut loose from all race prejudices. The old 
antipathies cannot survive in a new land where 
men are valued merely as men, each for what he is 

[63] 



motlt) peace auD ©ftent Creatg 

or what he can do, not all for his origin or his 
relationships. And because America is interna- 
tional, two-thirds British but not all, and for the 
rest, German, French, Scandinavian, Dutch, Flem- 
ish, Italian, Spanish, Slav, she can have no race 
basis for nationality. What is impossible seems 
to her unnecessary. America is now a large part — 
the largest part — of the Greater Britain. But for 
all that she cannot be British in any narrow and 
exclusive sense. The Anglo-Saxon Union will be 
moral and intellectual, never political, and least 
of all military. An alliance of offense and de- 
fense exists to make enemies, not friends. At the 
best it joins nations at the lowest point of contact, 
and for the least worthy of purposes. 

All this makes it possible for the American in 
some degree to interpret the aspirations of men of 
other nations. And it gives to the United States 
as an international nation a duty as well as a priv- 
ilege to lead in the movement towards interna- 
tional peace, the effort to throw war backward 
into the place of the very last resort. 

When we compare the forty-eight states of the 

[64] 



motlt} peace anD ©ftent Creatg 

American Union, we find differences in race, in 
surroundings, in products, in conditions of life, 
as great as those which exist in all Northern and 
Western Europe. Outside of traditions inherited 
from bygone centuries, there is no fundamental 
cause why these European states should not form 
a similar union, no reason why they should not 
acknowledge in peace their common character and 
their common needs, at the same time casting aside 
all semblance of evil designs upon one another. 
This should be the easier because no such designs 
can now exist. Those of the past are already frus- 
trated by their crushing cost, by the grim fact that 
never again among civilized people can war be 
made to pay. 

Consciously or not, and in the degree that they 
understand their own position, the American people 
are ready to offer their mediation to Europe. As 
a whole, they have no illusions in regard to war. 
They have seen and known it for what it is. It is 
to them the most hideous of calamities, financial, 
physical, moral. Their own civil war, hard 
fought against their brothers, yawns like a chasm 

[6s] 



J2lprlti peace anD ©fient Creatp 

across their history. Into this chasm, the democ- 
racy of the new world came near its irretrievable 
fall. The loss of the best young manhood, North 
and South, which this war entailed has never been 
made good. Those who fell were the best we bred 
and with the loss of the best, a nation fills its ranks 
with the sons of weaker men. For each slaughter 
the world over dwarfs the breed of men that fol- 
lows. The unretuming ever were the brave. 

Three foreign wars the American people have 
fought — against their judgment and against their 
conscience — incidents they hope never to see re- 
peated. These wars were of the nature of experi- 
ments, for a democracy is at the mercy of experi- 
menters. It learns by its own mistakes, the only I 
way a people ever learns. Whatever the people 
find wrong the nation must condemn. All na- 
tions in the long run are ruled by public opinion, \ 
the United States most of all. i 

Chief among all our inheritances from England \ 
is what we are pleased to call the "Puritan Con- ' 
science." And as a result of this conscience, every f 
act in America finds its final test in moral standards. 

[66] 



COorlD peace anD ©ftent Cteatg 



Moral standards as well as standards of success 
rank much more highly in America than in any other 
land. This is in proportion as tradition and con- 
ventionalism are weaker. So the people may con- 
sent to unrighteous deeds, but only for a time. 
They make many mistakes in the rush of events. 
They may apply wrong standards wrongly. But 
if they do, the same case comes up again for settle- 
ment. At the last the people settle it aright, be 
it in ten years or in a century. In this fact lies 
the hope of America, the hope of democracy. 

And the cool judgment of the American people 
is concluding that all war is wrong. It is brutal, 
wasteful, wild, irrational. "There never was a 
good war, nor a bad peace," said the earliest and 
greatest of our sages, Franklin. Between democ- 
racy and militarism there is eternal feud. For 
the army has been ever the right arm of autocracy 
and aristocracy, the upholder of caste. 

The movement towards peace is a part of a 
greater movement towards democracy, towards the 
recognition of the rights and value of the individ- 
ual man. And so, America offers no apology for 

[67] 



COorlti Peace ana ©ftent Cteatg 

the fact that she stands for peace. She is afraid 
of no nation, she cherishes no resentment toward 
any. There may be conditions in her future in 
which war is the only solution, but she can imagine 
no such condition, nor do her friends imagine them 
for her. 

In due season, it should be not impossible to 
determine all boundaries by friendly agreement 
and in the interest of the people concerned. To 
treat all international affairs by mutual concession 
and mutual cooperation, in honor preferring one 
another, is the meaning of international peace. 
The castled crags that crown the hills that lie to 
the southward and eastward tell us of the days 
when the robber barons and their knights lived 
on* the people by pillage and by ransom. Later 
the payment of tribute was found a convenient 
substitute, less cruel than pillage and more certain 
than booty. Slowly the process of federation 
brought these peoples nearer and nearer together, 
blending the small groups into the larger ones 
called nations. The spirit of federation proved 
the antidote to plunder and tribute. A nation is 

[68] 



I 



^otlD Peace and ©fient Cteatg 

a group of federated people at peace within itself. 
A century and a half ago our fathers raised the 
cry, ''Millions for defense and not a sou for 
tribute." And the robber barons of the day took 
us at our word. They no longer asked for tribute, 
but each group within its own nation exacted 
shamelessly the "millions for defense." Under 
the name of "national defense," they are still ex- 
acting their remorseless toll. The syndicates for 
war are "bleeding the nations white," even as their 
predecessors, the robber-barons, bled white the 
principalities in which they carried on their ma- 
rauding operations, and the remedy for the war 
tributes of to-day must be found as of old in fed- 
eration. The people of the earth must submit to 
the limitless robbery of disguised war, or else they 
must meet in mutual trust and mutual helpful- 
ness. This is the age of science, of business, of 
the spread of Christian civilization. Only one 
thing can be more unscientific, unbusiness-like, un- 
civilized and unchristian than the present attitude 
of the great powers of Europe toward each other. 
That one thing is war itself, but for real war there 

[69] 



HFC 1 1913 



morlD Ipeace anD ©fient Creatp 

is no money to pay. This condition cannot last. 
Science, business, religion, civilization must as- 
sert themselves and the dominance of any one of 
these means peace. 

And with the assurance of peace between two 
at least of the great nations, the earnest of the 
larger peace to follow, the name of Ghent will be 
forever honorably associated. 



[70] 



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